There is no question that effective advocacy requires the ability to humanize the client before the decision-maker, whether one is representing the subject of a criminal or civil proceeding. Indeed, this is a large part of the work done by criminal defense and immigration attorneys. Mark Silver’s Handbook offers useful tools to help attorneys become better advocates in either arena. However, it also suffers from the author’s transparent attempts to promote the mitigation expert field.

Early in the book, the author — an attorney and criminal and immigration mitigation expert — offers the notion that “[l]awyers are not equipped with nor should they be expected to fully understand every aspect of the client’s needs in the absence of assistance.” He then continues to lump social workers who offer mitigation assistance with med

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